The next day, Jade received a package from Ito’s driver. Inside, there was an envelope of clean bills—thousand won—and a small celadon vase, only slightly taller than the length of her hand, inlaid with dancing cranes over a beautiful shade of jade.
24
Lingonberries
1945
ON AUGUST 6, THE WHOLE WORLD WOULD CHANGE WITH THE DISCOVERY that man can ignite the fire of the sun upon the surface of the earth. But Yamada Genzo did not know this in July, when he arrived back in Manchuria to prepare for the inevitable. The troops were in the poorest conditions, ill-clad, ill-shod, and barely fed. They were given a set of ammunition that would last them a day of battle, and no more. Yet, unloosed on the grassy field on a summer’s day, they still joked around with each other, bartering cigarettes, washing their clothes, wading into the chilly lake and splashing like children. Here in the peaceful boreal forest, the soldiers were not drawn to the kind of depravity that Yamada had seen in previous campaigns. These troops were not inherently more innocent than any other, nor were his previous soldiers inherently bestial. The earlier troops would have also carved the names of their beloved on the trunks of these trees, if they were here now. These troops, given the same circumstances as in the past, would also slash the throats of women while inside them. In Nanjing Yamada had seen a lieutenant do just that and continue fucking the still-warm dead body. After finishing he turned around and said to Yamada, almost sheepishly, “It’s better.” Yamada considered killing the lieutenant on the spot, but that would have been treason. Rape and murder of the enemies of the Empire were just a natural part of war.
Looking around at his cheerful troops, General Yamada wondered whether they didn’t know the end was approaching, or knew but didn’t care.
*
AT EIGHT O’CLOCK on August 6, Yamada took his breakfast in front of his own tent. It was bright from five until almost midnight, but the sun was gentler up north. This softer light was shimmering on the surface of the green grass, and far away the peaks of the Khingan mountains loomed blue. There was nothing that showed that a tremendous event had taken place—the instant death of an entire city from a single bomb. Only in the late afternoon did they receive the radio message about Hiroshima, and Yamada still couldn’t make sense of it. How was it possible, to have these light purple flowers swaying in the wind, the turtles swimming lazily in the lake, the trees spreading their branches and straining to grow as much as possible during this heatless summer—and then at the same time, have blinding white light, charred and melting flesh, faceless people in a city of ash? It was utterly senseless, this world—and to act as though it did make sense was the greatest crime. And yet, the decision was made in the commanders’ meeting to continue to prepare for the impending Russian attack, as if nothing had changed.
“Sense!” General Yamada muttered to himself at the table, seated among the regimental commanders and the chiefs of staff. The others looked at him with concern or suspicion, and he lowered his eyes to a tiny black dot on the table. It was an ant, on its eternal mission to hurriedly get and store food; he kept his eyes fixed on it until the meeting ended.
Over the next few days, the regiments whiled away their time mending their gear and writing letters, to be dispatched whenever they would mobilize once more and pass through a town. It was predicted that the Russians would wait until fall to advance their armies, to replenish the troops worn out from the war in Europe. But on August 9, Yamada’s camp received a message from Japan—that another atomic bomb razed Nagasaki to the ground—and another one from their western front—that Russia had declared war on Japan in the twenty-third hour of August 8. The tanks started rolling at midnight, precisely three months after the German surrender.
Yamada’s army was set to march to the northwest in order to join the Fourth Army. The soldiers, who had been naively cheerful while they were camped, assumed a solemn air as the morning warmed to a honeyed afternoon. An eerie silence gripped them. It was the kind of quiet that reminds one of childhood summers, of birdsongs, mothers when they were still young and beautiful, and leaves swaying and shimmering in the wind. In the midst of this somnolence, the faintest tremor on the black earth was felt by Yamada. The soldiers exchanged looks as the sound grew, but kept up their march.
Yamada ordered a halt. They were facing northwest, and to their right were the smooth, dark ankles of the Khingan mountains, sloping gently upward to meet the clouds. From their left, the tremor intensified and became a rumble. Over the soft, green grass of the horizon, they could now make out the tanks and the artillery of the Russian army.